"Sydney March 1944
The dead woman's face is starkly pale, especially in contrast to the rest of her body, stained a deep mahogany brown after nearly ten years soaking in a formalin bath."
The Pyjama Girl was an unknown woman, found dumped by a road near Albury in 1934. She had been brutally murdered. Who she was, and who killed her, become Australia's great unsolved crime for decades. The body was preserved in formalin, her image circulated around the world.
The Pyjama Girl was an unknown woman, found dumped by a road near Albury in 1934. She had been brutally murdered. Who she was, and who killed her, became Australia's great unsolved crime for decades.
The body was preserved in formalin, her image circulated around the world. The mystery fascinated the nation and, for some, became an obsession
Ten years later, the body was identified and a man was convicted of her manslaughter. The case, it seemed, was neatly solved.
But this 'solution', advanced by the police, accepted by the courts and the media, and since repeated endlessly, was a lie. Behind the lie is a troubling story of murder and obsession, of a wild conspiracy theory, of police corruption and a miscarriage of justice and of a real killing which floated free from reality and became a myth.